Abstract:

Since a holistic paradigm, and with a view point interpretivism, this article proposes characteristics for instructional design of virtual learning Objects (VLO), oriented to civil engineers using mobile devices.
The approach is the constructivist and cognitive. It is based in the working memory (Baddeley & Lewis, Attention and retrieval from long term memory, 1984) and the load cognitive theory (Sweller, 1994).
The proposal is explorative and descriptive and presents a comparative relationships with the research of (Li & Parsons, 2009) and (O´Malley, y otros, 2005).
Two orientations for the assessment are presented a technical approximation with theory of (Vavoula & Sharples, 2012) and a pedagogical with the theory of (Rieger & Gay, 2012).
This paper presents the analysis of two studies, the first for usability in mobile devices and the second for instructional design and memory performance. The research has been done in the Pontifical University Javeriana and the National University of Colombia.

Keywords:

m-learning, civil engineering, mobile devices, short term memory, long term memory, working memory, usability.